We are now accepting vendor applications for the 20th Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair.

The event will be April 25, 2015 and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Book Fair will be held in the same location as the 2014 Book Fair, The Crucible in Oakland, and this year there will be additional space for vendors.

The deadline for applications is January 15, 2015. Space is limited!

This year, we are offering vendor tables on a sliding scale from $95 to $150 for anyone selling any merchandise, or $15 to $35 for any tables distributing free information.

Please help us find an artist or designer for the 2015 Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair Poster!
We are planning on printing more than one design this year to celebrate the event’s 20th anniversary.
We have a budget! We can pay you!
We are looking for someone who lives in the greater SF Bay Area and has never done the poster before. You can see past designs here.

The only catch is that we need preliminary concepts by MONDAY OCTOBER 20. That’s a week from today!

Here is the text that will be included on the final poster:
20th Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair
April 25, 2015
10 a.m. to 6 pm
Free Admission / Open to All
The Crucible, 1260 7th Street, Oaklandhttp://www.bayareaanarchistbookfair.com

Deadline: January 15, 2015
The Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair is an annual event for people interested and engaged in radical work to connect and learn through book and information tables, workshops, panel discussions, skillshares, films and more! We create an inclusive space to introduce new folks to anarchism; foster productive dialogue between various political traditions, as well as anarchists from different milieus; and create an opportunity to dissect our movements’ strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and tactics.

Here’s how you can help us make this year’s Book Fair dynamic and engaging:

Forward this call to a group that’s doing work that inspires you, especially if they’ve never come to the Book Fair.

Submit a proposal for a workshop topic that has never before appeared at the Book Fair.

Create a strategy to get a crowded room full of people talking about how to create the structures needed to dismantle capitalism.

Organize an event (ex. a talk, a panel, a skillshare, a music show) during the week preceding the Book Fair, and let us know about it! We will use the Book Fair’s website to promote what’s happening across the Bay Area.

What Are Workshops?

The Book Fair provides a forum for discussion among anarchists and individuals/groups who work with anarchists. Workshops will be generally facilitated by one person or a panel of people, and scheduled in blocks of 60-90 minutes. We encourage active hands-on participation, creativity, and enough time and space for questions, answers, and discussion.

We are looking for workshop proposals that:

Are aimed at people who are curious about, or new to, anarchist ideas and radical practices.

Delve into a topic in depth for people who are already involved in the anarchist tradition or radical activism.

Address broad, philosophical questions about our work and allow a constructive critique of our actions.

Encourage dialogue between anarchists and other political tendencies, groups, or movements

Highlight stories or lessons learned.

Share specific skills for better organizing and better living.

Encourage and enable participants to make connections with each other.

Tackle and propose strategies for struggles occurring in our local communities like gentrification and police violence.

Connect anarchism and radical activism to the movements around major issues like environmental destruction, workers’ struggles, and immigration.

These parameters provide a starting point for developing a session, but please feel free to get creative and propose something outside of these categories.

A Special Workshop Theme this Year

In the Americas, anarchists have always been the target of state repression, most recently from grand juries on the west coast, from Seattle to Santa Cruz, and arrests in Mexico City for fire bombings. Anarchists are also among those at the forefront of the struggle against systems of domination. Both of these aspects of struggle rely heavily, if not completely, on the quality of the social and personal relationships we keep.

For those facing repression, these relationships are the main source of economic, emotional, and legal support through letter writing, money, friendship, etc. We also rely on these same relationships when executing plans for the obliteration of hierarchal systems.

At the same time, the cracks in our social relationships and our internal conflicts are exploited by the state to defeat us. Repression, and our difficulties resolving conflict, create seemingly unbridgeable chasms between us.

This year, we are particularly interested in workshops which focus on maintaining and building relationships within our community, how and why (and if!) to resolve internal conflicts, and working with non-anarchist groups and communities.

How Do I Submit My Proposal?
To propose a session for the Book Fair, please submit the form on our website by January 15, 2015. We will finalize the program and confirm sessions by January 30.

In addition to the Book Fair, a variety of diverse anarchist themed events will occur at different venues throughout the Bay Area the week preceding and the weekend during the Book Fair. You can propose any type of event or activity; the only limitation is your imagination! These events will be organized autonomously from the Book Fair (think of the Anarchist Café, often held the Friday evening before the Book Fair, or the BASTARD conference, normally held on Sunday), and as such, venues are the responsibility of the event organizer—though we are happy to help with suggestions.

The Book Fair organizers are committed to promoting autonomous events to the best of our ability through the event website and Facebook page. In general, contacting the Book Fair organizers in advance of scheduling the event is a useful way to ensure the least number of event conflicts. Please email us to let us know of events that are schedule during or around the Book Fair.

The 2015 Bay Area Anarchist Fair will be April 25, 2015. This year will be the 20th Anniversary!

The Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair is an annual event for people interested and engaged in radical work to connect and learn through book and information tables, workshops, panel discussions, skillshares, films and more! We create an inclusive space to introduce new folks to anarchism, foster productive dialogue between various political traditions and anarchists from different milieus, and create an opportunity to dissect our movements’ strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and tactics.

This year, Book Fair will be returning to The Crucible. We received lots of good and bad feedback after the event last year, and there will be changes at the venue to address some of the concerns (more details below).

The Venue

After a thorough review of event spaces in the greater Bay Area, we have confirmed The Crucible in West Oakland to host the 2015 Anarchist Book Fair, the same site as the 2014 event. For more information on our criteria and process for selecting a venue, please go here.

We received a lot of feedback after last year’s event, and we are making several changes to address some of the concerns. Primarily, there will be no Crucible classes going on during the Book Fair, so this means less noise and heat, as well as more room for vendors and better spaces for workshops. We will also be able (weather permitting) to have the large roll-up doors open for better circulation.

The Crucible is a non-profit arts organization that was founded in 1999 and moved to West Oakland in 2003. The Crucible is located at 1260 7th Street, just two blocks from the West Oakland BART station, making it easily accessible from all over the Bay Area. It is also relatively close by bike, bus/BART, or car to other Oakland venues such as Qilombo and the OMNI, making it possible for concurrent or coordinated events at other venues.

Vendors

Vendor applications will be available soon, and will be due by December 31. Space is limited. To receive the announcement of when these are available, sign up here.

Workshops and Panels

Session proposal information will be available soon, Proposals are due by December 15 and confirmations will be sent before January 30. To receive the announcement of when this information is available, sign up here.

Once again, we are beginning the search for the 2015 Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair.

After the 2014 event, we received a lot of feedback about The Crucible as a venue. Vendors and attendees liked that it was accessible by BART, had food vendors, people could hang out outside, and the building had multiple meeting rooms. The main criticisms we heard were that it was noisy, hot, and congested. We will be considering the Crucible again with modifications (scheduling the bookfair on a day when there are no classes/furnaces are off, rearranging the layout, opening the roll-up doors for ventilation, etc).

We will also be opening the search and considering new venues before committing to the Crucible. Could you help us?

Approximately $3000 or less for one day (or max $5500 if it includes chair/tables)

2 to 3 meeting rooms separate from the vendor area (2 meeting rooms with 50 person capacity and one room with 150 person capacity are ideal)

Wheelchair accessible

Is all ages

Does not require us to hire off-duty police officers as security

Prefer a venue where there is an outdoor area to hang out in that is not the street/sidewalk

Prefer to sell/serve our own food and have no requirement to buy food/beverage from the venue

Available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on a Saturday in late March 2015 or early April 2015 plus ability to load/unload tables and chairs and set up/break down on Friday evening/Monday morning.

Is in San Francisco or Oakland

Following is an annotated list of all of the venues we considered last year. We will be revisiting many of them again as potential locations for 2015. Several of the possible venues did not return our phone calls or emails (3 to 5 attempts each). If you have a personal connection to that venue, or if you have a connection that might help us get a reduced rate at one of the larger venues, please contact us ASAP.

Our goal is to book a venue in August, 2014. If you have information or a lead on a venue, please get in touch with us by July 15, 2014 at bayareabookfair@gmail.com.

Please note that given the political nature of this event, the committee is not willing to sign any contract with a clause that says the event may be cancelled at any time without notice (this includes City College of San Francisco and any San Francisco Unified School District Facility, as noted below).

Prior to 2014, the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair had been organized and sponsored by Bound Together Books in San Francisco, who also provided the insurance for the event and paid the deposit for the venue (to be reimbursed from vendor fees). In the past few years, the Bookfair has either broken even financially or lost some money, which was covered by Bound Together.

For 2014, a new group came together and organized the Bookfair without this financial backing, and starting with no funds from the previous years. To provide the venue deposit, we borrowed $1,000 from one of our members (paid back later from vendor fees) and contracted with an independent broker to provide the insurance. Most venues require a special event insurance certificate covering up to $1 million in damages.

Because of the new venue and new organizing group, we planned conservatively because we didn’t know if vendors would support the new group and the new venue, and didn’t know if we would cover our expenses. This was one of the reasons for changing the event from two days back to one day. As a group, we agreed to cover any deficit, but we also considered scaling back the event even further to save money if we didn’t have a good response from people reserving tables.

We offered tables for $95 to $150 for vendors, and $15 to $35 for organizations distributing literature and not selling. We were pleasantly surprised that many groups paid at the higher end of the scale, which made it possible for us both to cover all of our expenses and provide free/reduced cost tables to some groups and organizations, including many Bay Area groups focusing on gentrification and displacement.

Our main expenses were renting the venue, renting tables and chairs, and printing posters/postcards. All of our expenses are detailed below.

Through some good luck, we ended up with $1500 left after all expenses were paid. We had anticipated spending about $500 on renting A/V equipment, but one of our collective members arranged to have these donated a few days before the event. In addition, we thought we were going to have to pay around $1000 for private security, but ended up providing security with volunteers (though it is likely we will need to pay for private security next year). Also, most of the photocopying of the schedule/program was donated by individuals. Had these things not happened, we would have broken even or lost money.

Everyone who works on the committee is a volunteer, and all speakers/presenters donated their time to make this event happen.

The $1500 remaining from this year will go toward paying the rental deposit on the 2015 venue, so we won’t need to borrow money this year. It is our hope that one day the Bookfair will be in a strong enough financial position to reimburse some travel for speakers.

If you have any questions about the finances for the 2014 Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, please contact the committee at bayareabookfair@gmail.com.

Hi friends! We’re looking for a volunteer WordPress guru to help us update the look of the bookfair website. If you are that person, or know that person, please contact us at bayareabookfair at gmail.com (Everyone who works on the bookfair is a volunteer, by the way).

We’ll be posting more updates – a 2014 financial summary and updates on 2015 – soon!

Dogs and other animals (aside from service animals) are not permitted at The Crucible. The Crucible is an industrial work space that includes machinery for welding, glass flame working, blacksmithing, etc. Classes will be in session throughout the day and the facility is not a safe place for animals because of noise, heat, and open flames. Please do not bring an animal into the building.

We still have a few posters! A couple people have contacted us saying we should have posters up at various locations. If you think we should have posters up at a particular place, please email us and we can get you some posters to distribute.